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Ashley Smith inquest: Guards want faces on video blurred

Media lawyers at the Ashley Smith inquest argue that not showing guards' faces amounts to censoring important information.

An unidentified woman and Warden David Dick leave the coroner's court on Tuesday.
(Colin McConnell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

By Diana ZlomislicStaff Reporter

Tues., May 24, 2011

Guards at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution may stop recording occasions when they use force against inmates if their identities are revealed on prison videos released during the Ashley Smith inquest, a coroner’s court was told Tuesday.

A legal fight for full, unrestricted access to all documents and videos entered as exhibits during the high-profile inquest into the teen inmate’s death began on Tuesday with lawyers for the Toronto Star, CBC, The Globe and Mail and Bell Media arguing that prison guards — as public servants who knew they were being videotaped for future scrutiny of their actions — have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

The Correctional Service of Canada insists that they do. It wants the faces of all prison employees appearing on videos shown during the inquest to be blurred by media before they are publicly broadcast. It does not object to their names being published.

Lawyers for the federal correctional service showed the court 18 emails it solicited from Grand Valley staff responding to the issue — with many raising concerns about privacy and safety.

One prison employee argued her family shouldn’t suffer because Smith “decided one too many times to attempt to take her own life.”

Coroner Dr. Bonita Porter reserved her ruling on the motion.

An inquest jury is expected to see at least 10 prison videos showing how officers responded to Smith, who choked herself to death at the Kitchener prison in October 2007 while she was on suicide watch.

The inquest heard that the young woman from Moncton, N.B. — who had spent nearly a year in federal custody and most of that time in solitary confinement — often tied strips of cloth around her body parts because she liked the feeling. She had been punted to the adult system from youth custody, where she was convicted of throwing crab apples at a postal worker and stealing a CD. At 15, a judge sentenced her to few months in jail, but her sentence swelled to more than six years because of in-custody charges.

Two weeks before her death, when her sentence was again extended because of in-custody charges, a prison manager testified that Smith was overcome with hopelessness.

The jury, which did not sit on Tuesday, has already seen five videos showing guards interacting with Smith and entering her cell to cut off ligatures. A video taken a few days before her death shows Smith turning purple on the floor of her segregation cell, a ligature tied around her neck.

According to national policy, prison staff must videotape all such use-of-force incidents.

Dick said he doesn’t believe Grand Valley guards will disobey protocol completely but worries they may second-guess themselves and stop filming because they’re wondering if the footage will end up on the evening news.

Dick, who came to the institution after Smith’s death, said “many staff remain deeply affected and traumatized by this tragedy.

“(Not blurring their faces) will only compound the stress that they’re already experiencing.”

Deirdre Reinhardt, a former corrections officer at Grand Valley during Smith’s incarceration, testified that staff don’t think about the “remote possibility” videos could end up on TV or online.

“I think it’s fine for the world to see the videos and what we did, but I don’t think it adds anything to the truth being told to see the faces of the individuals,” said Reinhardt, who is now an administrative assistant at the prison.

Lawyers for the media argued that seeing the expressions on the faces of guards during their interactions with Smith, especially at the time of her death, is vital to telling the full story.

What if they were they rolling their eyes? Did they cover their eyes or look impatient? Were they glaring at their supervisor, waiting for an order to enter her cell?

If their faces are blacked out or blurred, as the correctional service is requesting, the public will never know, they argued.

“This motion is a bald attempt to have you engage in a form of censorship,” lawyer Paul Schabas told the coroner on behalf of the Star and CBC.

“These are public officers engaged in public duties, who knew they were being videotaped for their own protection, for the protection of inmates and the protection of the public,” Schabas said. “You are being asked to restrict the public’s right to know.”

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